


Follow me down out of this town

by Spylace



Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Because everything is better with dragons, Bucky is a polyglot, Gen, Happy Ending, Loki is a liar, Steve is a mother hen, also Temeraire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:18:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spylace/pseuds/Spylace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Is that an egg?” Bruce asks hesitantly, readjusting his wings.</p><p>“A dragon egg, approximately thirty-centimeters in length, species unknown.” Jarvis chimes in, sounding put out that he could not say more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow me down out of this town

**Author's Note:**

> Mix of movie continuity and comic continuity. I mean, what is this continuity you speak of???

Steven Grant Rogers is born frail and grey; dying from the moment he takes his first breath and breathes his last in his Brooklyn apartment.

Steve is born the day Eskrin dies, delicate and blue, not at all the lusty middle-weight the good doctor promised when he climbs out of his shell, a dubious cross between a feathery Incan and an American Blue. He looks like something a cat coughed up.

This is one of the kinder descriptions.

But none of that matters when he hatches to a pair of blue eyes and a voice that’s been with him since he was laid. There is a reason why hatching rooms are kept quiet, only assigned pilots deigning to greet their own eggs. But Bucky at sixteen is in here more than not, cussing hard and fast as he polishes the eggs one by one, the hard in shell, the newly brought, fills them with war songs, glory and the pain of loss.

Nick Fury is hatched here, only a few stalls away. He comes by his temper honestly.

“Oh shit” Bucky tells him as he lifts his head and Steve frowns, his reptilian face wrinkling into a disappointed grimace. “ _Bucky_ ”

“You’re a minute old and you’re already judging me. Jesus.”

His first full meal is pancakes slathered with jam because no one told Bucky any better, he’s only in here every other day for mouthing off or starting fights. Years later, they are the only things Steve will eat when he is upset, golden brown and dripping.

Bucky runs a finger down the thin slope of his neck, barbed and spined with tiny feathers, an elated look on his face as he breathes, “Steve?”

Steve has no idea why he starts laughing when he replies, _of course it’s me_ _Bucky, who else would it be?_

 

Steve’s already been promised to a captain but he refuses to leave Bucky’s side. Bucky never left him and he doesn’t like the way Hodges smells, the man is a bully. He pulls on Bucky’s hair, cropped shorter than he remembers it being and bites down on his shoulder when the boy tries to leave.

“But we’re partners.” He says plaintive and Agent Carter purses her lips, bright red, draws his eyes to the perfect heart of her face. Bucky gives him a helpless look of a man caught between two dames but maybe that’s the wrong comparison because Steve’s known more than one girl who’d been willing to share.

“Come on pal, I ain’t an aviator. Don’t got a clue how to take care of you.”

“But you’ve always take care of me.” He insists and Colonel Phillips gives up, washes his hand of it and Steve gets Bucky.

 

Steve is a year old and already an international icon. His hatchling down falls out in soft clumps. He has men sneezing from a mile away. When his primaries grow in, the Commandos color them with paint as red as Agent Carter’s lips and call him Captain America.

But even Captain America can’t stop Bucky from falling out of a speeding train. He nearly snaps his wings off for the effort and they tell him he’s lucky he got away with bruises and a minor concussion. It certainly hurts less than the sense of failure that clings to his scales.

 

He crashes with Schmitt in the ice and wakes up following a game he’s only heard through Bucky’s lips, a game that’s already happened and shouldn’t be on the radio.

 

The twenty-first century is both strange and new. He sees Fury again, missing an eye, a man of iron, an alien god. SHIELD assigns him a legion of therapists and throws his way a captain after potential captains though no one calls them that anymore. Steve doesn’t want a captain; he is one in his own right.

He wants Bucky but Bucky isn’t here. Bucky died a long time ago.

 

After the thaw, Fury hands him a file on a man called the Winter Soldier. He learns about the Red Room, Department X, the brainwashing and the experiments and in his dreams, kills them a thousand different ways. Steve would have flown halfway across the globe had they still existed and nearly cries when Natasha tells him Bucky died his friend.

 

Loki stares up at him, his teeth flashing, at once coy and serene.

“It seems that I owe you a great boon.” He says reluctantly and Steve responds firmly “that really isn’t necessary”, knowing full well what happened to the last person who’d taken the godling on his offer. Loki did not suffer debts well, gratitude even less. And Steve liked his body parts exactly where they were.

“I can grant you your greatest desire.” Loki wheedles, his fingers crackling with fire as he strides forward. Beside him, Clint swallows wrong and starts coughing. Natasha rolls her eyes and thwomps him with her tail.

Steve shakes his head.

“You can’t give me what I want.”

“Can’t I?” Loki challenges.

Steve’s eyes grow alarmingly wide at the sight, his feathers standing on end. The egg in Loki’s hands is black and smooth like a thing cut from marble, white veins spiraling every which way and a dab of shy red off to the side.

“Loki” Thor merely looks pained at the sight, his massive shoulders slumped and his golden head unusually weary. “Is that...?”

Loki glares at his brother.

“I will not have Jor take responsibility for that _harlot_. It’s all her fault.”

“Is that an egg?” Bruce asks hesitantly, readjusting his wings.

“A dragon egg, approximately thirty-centimeters in length, species unknown.” Jarvis chimes in, sounding put out that he could not say more.

Clint grabs an arrow. “What’s the bet that it’s going to blow up in our faces?”

“Hawkeye, stand down.” Steve commands. He flushes, the team looks surprised at his outburst.

As a rule, dragons do not care for their young, preferring to hide them in caves or in the care of enterprising humans. But parents have been observed to grow broody when an egg is laid. He cannot help the surge of protectiveness at the egg in the god’s hands, glossy and pied, still soft in the shell like boiled leather instead of a bird’s egg.

After all, if a pair of boys from Brooklyn could transcend death, could he not do the same?

Though he knows he’s already had, Steve can’t help but ask.

“That thing isn’t going to explode is it?”

Loki smiles blithely, “Of course not.”

 

The egg has him more anxious than a new recruit. He has to turn it over every few hours and keeps it warm with his body. When he has to go out, for bodily function, PR, or the few milk runs Fury manages to pry into his busy schedule, he layers it with feathers that leaves him looking lopsided and not at all heroic on the front page. The New York Times cries foul play and even accuses SHIELD of abusing Captain America.

Whenever he has to leave for an extended period, it is a nightmare. Thankfully, the Avengers aren’t necessary for breaking up terrorist rings or infiltrating spy networks and take turns babysitting the potential bomb that Loki has regifted.

Though Thor assures them all that Jormungandr is a bright lad, truly a credit to his father (and there, Clint gapes in disbelief), no one wants to consider sharing their living space with a giant sea serpent.

“In some parts of Africa” Bruce reflects thoughtfully. “People believe that the spirits of their ancestors are reincarnated into dragon eggs.” The middle-weight sits on his haunches and recites several lines, looking quietly pleased after.

“We should talk to it.” Tony announces a day later. “Cap needs to learn how to share.”

Despite Steve’s initial misgivings, the idea catches on and has Natasha speaking Russian in the evenings, Clint with his Farsi, Kurdish and Tat, Tony and his various shades of Spanish and Jarvis covering everything else.

“Hey Cap, if he gets big enough, can I...”

“No Tony.”

“But...!”

“No!”

Natasha nuzzles the egg, almost as black as her scales and purrs “This time, I will not have to carry you.”

“You did a good job with her.” Clint says, patting the egg on its surface. He leans in and whispers, “When you get out of there, you and me on the range, one-on-one.”

Steve glares.

“I miss you.” He sighs when they’re alone. “It’s just not the same.”

“What am I supposed to say?” Bruce says in exasperation. “Alright, fine. From what we know, it is impossible to...”

 

“Should you be doing that?” Steve asks in the throes of anxiety as Tony creases his face in concentration and flicks the broken top off the egg. As quick as lightning, a head pokes out and bites him on the finger.

“OW! Son of a—!”

“Tony!” Steve hisses, even though he fears that the effort is wasted on both.

The egg wobbles on its axis and bursts open, speckling them all with bits of shell.

Clint has a silent panic attack in the background.

“Punk” Bucky spits, uncurling from a mass of coils.

Bucky is as big as a house cat, jet black with an oily sheen to his dime-sized scales. Squinting up at them, he stares from Tony to Natasha, Bruce, Clint, and finally at Steve who is helpless in this moment, smiling with a hangdog grin.

“What the hell took you so long?”

**Author's Note:**

> Steve Rogers - middle-weight, or at least what passes for a middle-weight post Industrial Revolution. More like a heavy light-weight, feathered, white and blue, mostly quadruped.
> 
> Natasha Romanov - pony-sized light-weight, bred for stealth and fighting spirit. Bipedal, black, red crest down to her shoulders, humanoid fingers.
> 
> Bruce Banner - A light-weight. Until the other guy comes out and then he'd... still be a light-weight but bigger. A solid shade of green, lighter on the belly and wings, myopic.


End file.
